my tears ricochet

Chapter Sixty Four

Ivy tried shuffling past him in the hallway with her eyes half shut, barely aware as she tipped sideways and into the wall in her efforts to slip by. Daryl frowned, noticing her grimace and the way she held herself still, pale face matching dark circles.

Bad balance wasn't surprising. On days where the tinnitus was especially bad, her coordination would be thrown off slightly. Bob had reassured him it was all connected and Daryl kept a watch out for whenever it might happen. But something in the set of her mouth caught his attention, glassy eyes opening up to look at him in confusion. Instinctively he reached out to try and feel her forehead, causing Ivy to flinch and turn away, One hand went up to her face protectively and the other braced her up against the wall.

It took a minute for the wariness to settle down and Daryl made sure to move slowly as he tried again, successfully managing to gently lay his hand across his forehead. He frowned at the fever he felt burning,.

"Yeah, no. Back to bed."

He had been assigned with Glenn to one garage where they were largely left alone, keeping up with a few cars stationed there. Coming in late for work had been the plan all along but he would have to figure out a way to tell Glenn he wouldn't be showing up at all.

Ivy frowned, clearly unimpressed. Gingerly, with extra care, she began forming signs in protest, awkwardly communicating something about Beth and plans. Whatever she was trying to say wasn't translating well enough and she waved her hand impatiently like she was erasing the previous signs before jabbing her finger towards the apartment door.

Anything to do with her health and Ivy wanted nothing to do with it.

"Not today," Daryl informed her. He tried to be soft with his tone because he wasn't yielding on the subject. "You need to sleep for a bit."

"No," Ivy said, dropping the signs in favour of speaking only. "I'm saying no."

He stood silent for a moment as he surveyed his options. Ivy had clearly stumbled directly from bed on her mission to get out the door and was still in the pair of sweats that she slept in as well as a shirt had originally been in his closet. Her feet were bare and he could see chipped lavender polish on her toes. "C'mere for a minute," he said, catching her by her arm and tugging her very gently against his side.

And she went willingly, trading the wall for Daryl, her head leaning against his shoulder.

The living room seemed like the safest choice to deposit a sick kid, especially one that had an enthusiasm for scaling down the side of the building in the middle of the night. Daryl really didn't want Ivy thinking she could try for round two when she was burning up and clearly not in full control of her balance.

They moved slowly, Ivy stiff and with one protective arm wrapped around her stomach, allowing Daryl to guide her to the couch so she could curl herself up and bury her face into the pillow. The blanket heaped over to the one side was tugged over her body neatly and she grabbed it with a fist, clearly content to burrow into it.

"Hey, how long have you been feeling like this?" Daryl asked but she was silent, her gaze a flat stare the seemed fixed on the wall.

His options felt incredibly limited. Before, in a different world, Daryl could have bundled her up and gotten her into Merle's old pickup truck to drive her to the ER. He could have picked up medicine from an actual pharmacy, looked up her symptoms online and tried to fumble his way through.

But she was sick in this world and Daryl was lost.

There was already a DVD in the player so Daryl turned it on and dropped the volume low so only the subtitles were playing. Her attention seemed fixed to the wall but at least if she felt like focusing on something beyond the beige coloured paint, there was something on the screen to watch.